Consolidating business communication for success

The continuing evolution of communication platforms and their nuances have certainly provided entrepreneurs, small businesses, and enterprise-level businesses with a wealth of options for correspondence, project management, and overall collection and distribution of data and information. Some serve a very specific purpose, while others cover a lot of bases, and they can all be very beneficial for productivity. However, if they are not properly implemented, they can lead to more struggles and wasted time than the time saved.

It’s wonderful that as a species we’ve come a long way since sending smoke signals, but maneuvering the current communications platform landscape can be tricky.

While implementing the correct tools for your business is supremely important, it will most likely involve some trial and error. You may use a few platforms at once, and then find that you only need one or two of them to do what is needed. Here are some of the key reasons why cohesive communication is so important on more of a theoretical level, and why it is worth the time to iron out the wrinkles during the internal business consolidation process.

Less time searching & interpreting, more time doing.

For starters, if an employee has to dig around to get the vital information needed to perform certain tasks, that is time wasted. As the age-old saying goes, 'Father Time is undefeated'. While that generally applies to the idea of existence, it also applies to the fact that time keeps on ticking into the future, as The Eagles so eloquently put it.

Once the relevant information is found, it will probably need to be interpreted in order to be executed in the most efficient possible way. Using the right system to communicate these instructions is important, as is providing the complete picture. These are elements that are more often handled by business operations and the protocols set by the company itself, but the right communications platform will facilitate this process as opposed to complicate it.

When you look at the structure of business operations, it really is simplified down to a set of calls and responses from one person to another, one team to another, or one entire business entity to another. The trick is to identify those communication nodes, and how simplify the process, so that the message can be distributed and acted upon in the most efficient way possible.

To help you with this, at Gretel, we are building a tool to integrate all your information from different applications and simplify the process of searching for it. We are also integrating artificial intelligence to help you to detect and interpret your data so you can reduce the time wasted on useless analysis.

Increased employee engagement.

A consolidated communication plan will ultimately lead to increased employee engagement and a more defined purpose at the workplace. Addressing potential communication confusion gaps will ultimately lead to greater employee satisfaction, because the time they spend will be more focused on what you actually hired them to do, as opposed to playing interpreter.

If an employee is caught in interpretation, they will become frustrated by the time lost, and ultimately check out of the protocol as opposed to locking in on the task at hand. It’s not rocket science to say that the more times this occurs in a given day, week, quarter, or year, the more time is lost and the more productivity decreases.

Improved employee retention rates.

The aforementioned factors also contribute heavily to employee retention. We covered employee retention strategies, and some possible tactics companies can implement to bolster employee satisfaction in the long run at the workplace.

Employee retention is essential, because the more turnover you have, the more time is lost in rehiring, retraining, and acclimating people to their new work environment. We believe that this is pretty obvious. There is a more important characteristic at play here, and that is chemistry. There is an intangible element of chemistry that develops with coworkers, a bond that forms over time and generates the synergy needed to do work and do it well.

Some coworkers may have a certain chemistry without much development of time at all; however, the most surefire way of evolving a relationship to have chemistry is through time and experience. Chemistry is simply an intangible factor that is generated, and can’t be purchased. Wrecking the chemistry and having to redevelop it constantly will prove to be a strain on the business. This is why implementing a business plan with consolidated communication in place is essential and fundamental to the success of businesses and organizations.

A similar theme to employee retention and employee engagement is the prevention of burnout for your team members. Here are 6 Actionable Tips to Prevent Burnout for Your Team.

Gretel was created with the purpose of making companies more efficient by bringing essential information front and center for all team members. The individual characteristics listed above are all symptoms of what can occur when a solid system, like Gretel, is implemented correctly.